Cambodia’s main opposition not expecting to survive

PHNOM PENH: Cambodia’s Supreme Court yesterday began its final session to decide whether to dissolve the main opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), thus ensuring victory for Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ruling party in next year’s general election.

A verdict was expected later in the day, amid an increasingly tense political situation and a campaign by the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) to crush the opposition.

If the court rules for dissolution, 118 members of the opposition party will also be banned from politics. More than half its members of parliament have already fled Cambodia, fearing a crackdown by Hun Sen.

Such a ruling would leave ‘‘no credible political opposition in Cambodia’’ for the first time since 1993, one senior diplomat based in Phnom Penh said.

In that year a UNrun election produced a shaky coalition between Prince Norodom Ranariddh and Hun Sen, a for mer Khmer Rouge guerrilla installed as prime minister in the mid1980s by the Vietnamese.

‘‘The processes in the early ‘nineties left Cambodia with a lively civil society and the freest press in Southeast Asia and there is a possibility of a lot of that going,’’ said the diplomat, who declined to be identified.

Dozens of police guarded the court yesterday.

On Wednesday, Cambodia’s opposition said it did not think it could escape dissolution.

The judge who heads the Supreme Court, Dith Munty, is a member of the permanent committee of the ruling party and a longtime Hun Sen loyalist.

The 2018 election had been shaping as possibly the biggest challenge to Hun Sen’s leadership, after his opponents unified behind the CNRP, but Hun Sen has stepped up measures against the opposition.

In September, CNRP leader Kem Sokha was arrested in Phnom Penh and charged with treason. — Reuters